Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes

Civilization is always in danger when those who have never learned to obey are given the right to command.

Rule, after you have first learned to submit to rule.

All are born to observe order, but few are born to establish it.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

I was the law and order.

There is no king where there is no law.

Punishment alone governs all created beings.

My power comes from the military.

No true and perfect human society can be conceived which is not governed by some supreme authority…. Do the sheep when they are all assembled together rule and guide the shepherd?

My relationship to power and authority is that I'm all for it...People need somebody to watch over them.... Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.

Nature is good, but intellect is better, as the law-giver is before the law-receiver.

In order that a people may be free, it is necessary that the governed be sages, and those who govern, gods.

In the last analysis, one must be a military man in order to govern. It is only with boot and spurs that one can govern a horse.

He that cannot obey, cannot command.

How fit he is to sway That can so well obey.

It's so much easier to throw rocks than it is to govern.

How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself?

Learn to obey before you command.

To attempt to superimpose its views through the exercise of force, is seldom the part of intelligence; it is frequently the part of ignorance.

Men of power have no time to read; yet the men who do not read are unfit for power.

It is not good to have a rule of many.

There has to be absolute trust between the tiger and its master, but its master must be the master - there must be no mistake about that.

I like control.

Now, there's a desire for order, authority coming from a feeling that society has gone too far to the side of individualism and liberalism.

I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.